1959 to 13^th July 2024

KLOGS Member from January 2009

Monthly Winner June 2014 Tasik Puteri

Andrew was introduced to KLOGS by his close friend from Jakarta days-  Andrew Robinson. Membership was secured at the AGM game held at Saujana in January 2009. A regular attender Andrew performed well with several podium finishes, he however only took the winner’s prize once which was at Tasik Puteri in June 2014. He was however the winner of the other prize at Templer Park in April 2013 when he turned up paid his subs but had insufficient funds to pay his fines. Andrew’s last KLOGS game was in July of 2020 after Covid restrictions had been relaxed where he paid tribute to another good friend Roger McGowan following his passing. It was these 3 good friends that had many adventures together.

 Many of you would have had the privilege to attend their 200year birthday celebration in May of 2019 held at Andrew’s Condominium. This was a great night and enjoyed by all.

In addition to playing with KLOGS Andrew was also a keen member of SAGS (Sunday Afternoon Golf Society), and played with Loose Cannons and Fried Eggs.

Andrew’s life story is best described in his own words the following taken from an interview held 2012.

“I was born in Uganda in the last years of the British Empire!  My father was a colonial civil servant and worked as a District Commissioner in a very remote district of Uganda on the border with Sudan.  It was all very exotic and we were a very small British administrative cadre surrounded by pastoral farmers and tribesman – the Karamajong and Turkana peoples – who fought tribal wars with spears and shields.  Much of this life has now gone, thanks to the spread of automatic rifles and war throughout the region.  As I said, it was an ageless, harsh, and very simple form of existence centered mostly around cows.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything about it, though the experience is all part of my family lore and photo albums!

After Uganda my family moved around Africa and Australia, where I first went to school. 

My family finally settled in UK and after two years in Devon we moved to the small county town of Bedford.  Here the natives were not particularly warlike and I spent my formative years at school there. I was clearly an idle and not very successful student; my math’s teacher for example describing my efforts as “practically worthless.”  On the back of such encouraging comments, I did quite well and to my, and I’m sure the school’s, surprise I got a place at Cambridge to read History, getting a scholarship along the way. 

My family football team is Everton and I guess this enthusiasm for lost causes was part of that psyche, though a preference for the underdog may also have been a little self-serving. 

After Cambridge I joined the British Diplomatic Service.  Travel had been part of my earlier life and I fancied the idea of the life of the diplomat, and it proved to be a great career choice. Stints were spent in Jakarta, Ethiopia and lastly Malaysia.”

After leaving the Diplomatic Service Andrew concentrated his time on his Security Company and writing.

The writing led him to write several non- fictional works about Colonial Malaya, these include Kuala Lumpur at War 1939 – 1945.

It is a credit to Andrew that the proceeds from these books all have been donated to Lighthouse Children’s Welfare Home. 

Away from Kuala Lumpur Andrew was a keen trekker and embarked on adventures to Nepal and Eastern Europe.

He was also very interested in cricket and attended the WACA Perth to witness a juvenile 19-year-old Jimmy Anderson makes his Test Deputy in the Ashes.

Andrew strongly supported The Alice Smith School and was a long term, Governor.

We have managed to obtain the following amusing anecdote, which could be described as the tale of the Golf Fish.

Andrew’s family were away on holiday in UK and Andrew remained in KL. He was instructed by his daughter to look after her goldfish …. the obvious happened and the goldfish died. Anyway, Andrew decides to go to a local pet shop and buy some replacements …. well, they all look the same don’t they. He bought them from a Chinese lady in the pet store and as he was buying them in his usual joking manner asked the lady how you cooked them. He left the store with the goldfish and as he returned to his car, he met a friend so he stopped to chat and placed the bag with goldfish on his car roof. He finished his chat got in the car and drove home …. half way back he remembered about the goldfish which had probably slid off the car roof at the first bend.

He returned to the same pet shop and asked the Chinese lady again for another batch of goldfish. In a furious voice she replied …. “No!!! you’re cooking them!!!”

We forward our sincere condolences to Andrew’s wife Caroline and daughters Sarah and Catherine.